30 votes

We are back at square one of personal messaging

I can't shake the dejavu feeling I'm getting using any kind of messaging these days. Today we have an awful lot of messaging apps, that are all roughly the same, with similar features - Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, Riot, etc. This happened once already, at the dawn of 200X IM revolution that deprecated SMS for good we also had MSN, ICQ, GTalk, Jabber, etc. This also was a set of very similar personal messaging clients and protocols, similar in any way to each other. It all changed when the multi-protocol messaging apps came out - Pidgin, QiP, Miranda and others made it easy to gather all your contacts from various protocols in one place and to keep in touch with everyone. Shortly after Jabber transports were made so you could congregate all other accounts into one single XMPP account. Even N900 that came out in 2009 had the ability to gather various accounts into one single contact list.
I feel like right now with all the segmented IM apps it's a good time for something like this to happen again, and Telegram already has wat-bridge.
What are your thoughts on that topic? Do you think the history will repeat itself? Would a new federated formate like XMPP rise up?

32 comments

  1. [9]
    nacho
    Link
    For one-to-one communication, I use SMS almost exclusively. I don't know of anyone who doesn't have unlimited texts and who doesn't respond to text messages. People have their phones everywhere...

    For one-to-one communication, I use SMS almost exclusively. I don't know of anyone who doesn't have unlimited texts and who doesn't respond to text messages. People have their phones everywhere and if they don't respond immediately, they're unavailable.

    SMS works for business contacts, it works for people you don't know, for your loved ones, for everyone.

    People who no longer answer their phones due to robocalls answer per SMS.


    For one-to-many communication, SMS is king. I send mass texts for work regularly.

    SMS is the only way to know you reach everyone you should reach because everyone has a phone. Not everyone has whatever other app/platform you want.

    Sending thousands of text messages at once is free and extremely easy.


    I completely agree with the sea of multi-person platforms being a huge issue.

    Coordination clients that just deal with everything and stores all your log-ins were huge from like 2004 and a handful of years onwards. I don't know why they basically died, but they did.

    I'd expect there's some structural or protocol thing that makes this difficult to do for free or cheaply enough today to make it viable. Otherwise I'm sure it would be as quickly adopted as the old Trillian messenger that took over in all my circles 15 years ago.

    12 votes
    1. [2]
      NeoTheFox
      Link Parent
      Lucky you, here where I live SMS are not free, and to get unlimited play I have to pay a noticeable premium over my current plan that has unlimited internet and 300 minutes of voice. And I can't...

      Lucky you, here where I live SMS are not free, and to get unlimited play I have to pay a noticeable premium over my current plan that has unlimited internet and 300 minutes of voice. And I can't assume people who I am in touch with are available via SMS either, because most plans are paid on a subscription basis, and if you have your credit card linked to your provider it would only credit you with a monthly fee, so often I end up with a 0 phone balance without an option to send a paid SMS.

      I think what is different here about modern IMs is the update frequency. Old multi-protocol messengers relied on a notion that any given protocol had to be set in stone because not everyone would be able to upgrade right away if the company wants to change something, but now all it takes is a push to Play Store/App Store for the app to update almost instantly for most users. So if you are going to make a multi-protocol client you would have to deal with constant breakage of your software due to back-end changes.

      9 votes
      1. nsz
        Link Parent
        Lucky you dude, didn't even know this was possible. I'd kill for this over the unlimited texts I barley ever use but comes baked into the 3gb per month plan.

        unlimited internet

        Lucky you dude, didn't even know this was possible. I'd kill for this over the unlimited texts I barley ever use but comes baked into the 3gb per month plan.

        5 votes
    2. [2]
      Comment deleted by author
      Link Parent
      1. xstresedg
        Link Parent
        I just wish Signal supported SMS-to-Desktop-App, like Pulse does. It's more efficient for me to reply to SMS via a desktop app when using the computer. Reduces the amount I pick up my phone....

        I just wish Signal supported SMS-to-Desktop-App, like Pulse does. It's more efficient for me to reply to SMS via a desktop app when using the computer. Reduces the amount I pick up my phone. Especially if I decide to move to the Palm phone because I hate large phones and I hate overusing my phone.

        3 votes
    3. [5]
      babypuncher
      Link Parent
      The problem with SMS is that it's entirely stuck on my phone. I don't like carrying out conversations on my phone when I'm sitting at a computer with a full keyboard. SMS is also almost completely...

      The problem with SMS is that it's entirely stuck on my phone. I don't like carrying out conversations on my phone when I'm sitting at a computer with a full keyboard.

      SMS is also almost completely lacking in any form of security. Any messaging solution worth a damn needs to at least have the option of end-to-end encrypted chat sessions. Even Facebook Messenger offers this.

      6 votes
      1. nacho
        Link Parent
        My phone provider lets me send SMS from browser on any platform through a login tied to my phone number (no physical phone required). I completely agree on the point regarding security. I wouldn't...

        My phone provider lets me send SMS from browser on any platform through a login tied to my phone number (no physical phone required).

        I completely agree on the point regarding security. I wouldn't put anything in a message (irrespective of platform) or an email that I'd be uncomfortable putting in writing elsewhere. They are services provided by third parties after all.

        2 votes
      2. [3]
        xstresedg
        Link Parent
        While I don't believe it has any special security features, Pulse offers desktop SMS for a one time fee. Or at least it was when I bought it. It's a single guy developing it, AFAIK.

        While I don't believe it has any special security features, Pulse offers desktop SMS for a one time fee. Or at least it was when I bought it.

        It's a single guy developing it, AFAIK.

        1. [2]
          babypuncher
          Link Parent
          How exactly does this integrate with SMS on my iPhone though? Does Pulse just give me a separate phone number for desktop use? It's a non-starter if I have to tell all my friends and family that I...

          How exactly does this integrate with SMS on my iPhone though? Does Pulse just give me a separate phone number for desktop use? It's a non-starter if I have to tell all my friends and family that I will randomly switch what number i'm texting them from.

          1. xstresedg
            Link Parent
            You use the app in place of your default (or Signal) SMS app, everything routes through it instead. So when you download the desktop app, as long as your phone is online, and you're logged in with...

            You use the app in place of your default (or Signal) SMS app, everything routes through it instead. So when you download the desktop app, as long as your phone is online, and you're logged in with your Pulse account, you will see your text messages (and Pulse messages) through both apps.

            It's one number, whatever your SIM's number is.

            1 vote
  2. [7]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
    1. [4]
      NeoTheFox
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      It's different all around the world, sure, but here is what happened where I live - SMS were expensive, and a lot of people used ICQ to chat with each other on PCs. However ICQ themselves had the...

      The way the OP is written makes it seem like bridge clients became the defacto standard when for me that wasn't the case at all.

      It's different all around the world, sure, but here is what happened where I live - SMS were expensive, and a lot of people used ICQ to chat with each other on PCs. However ICQ themselves had the worst client imaginable - laggy, infested with ads and resource-heavy. But there were a lot of custom ICQ clients, most popular of them being QiP, and that's what a lot of people used. When everyone got phones capable of having j2me apps installed, an app called "Jimm" came around, another unofficial ICQ client that took it by storm - now you could just have it on your phone and be in touch with people on ICQ, without having to pay for SMS messages. So people who had never used ICQ started installing Jimm on their phones, just to get that "better SMS experience", and all these new Jimm users were installing QiP on their PCs, since nobody in their mind on Jimm would not recommend an official ICQ client. QiP quickly got a wind of what's going on and introduced a new version with a "QiP" account, that would create a "multi-account" for people on first log in into ICQ, and that multi-account was a custom XMPP server with an ability to find your ICQ contacts and add them to your friendlist in QiP. This allowed them to extend the functionality of QiP client with things that ICQ couldn't do, between people on a new QiP client a chat would open via XMPP without them being completely aware that they aren't using ICQ anymore, and with a QiP account came their email, cloud and all other things. So their strategy worked - they got a lot of people that started out with mobile to use their platform, and they carried over some existing users as well. Later they launched their own mobile client "QiP Mobile", capable of communicating with multi-account QiP users and based on Jimm source code. That's where smartphone revolution happened, and people buying smartphones found themselves without any good means to use ICQ or QiP accounts anymore, since new operating systems Android and iOS would put your phone into a sleep mode a background application would not be able to stay connected. Both XMPP (which QiP was based on) and ICQ rewired constant connection to the server to stay online, else the messages would not get delivered unless you open the app and connect to the network again. That left every smartphone user with two options - either use GTalk, that also was XMPP based and an ICQ transport with your GTalk account to stay in touch with ICQ people, or get a half-working ICQ/XMPP client to constantly deal with frustration of randomly dropping offline and battery drain due to inability to sleep. It took too long for these protocols to catch on and deal with these flaws so they got replaced with social networks rather quickly, but for some time XMPP was king. These days QiP is basically dead, both the client and the portal, ICQ changed hands who knows how many times, and now it has a decent mobile client, but it lost most of its userbase.

      6 votes
      1. [3]
        Comment deleted by author
        Link Parent
        1. [2]
          NeoTheFox
          Link Parent
          Oh yea, our perspectives differ that much because of regional difference, we had a GSM network here in eastern Europe, and the cellular phones were adopted very fast, with GSM network came...

          Oh yea, our perspectives differ that much because of regional difference, we had a GSM network here in eastern Europe, and the cellular phones were adopted very fast, with GSM network came GPRS/WAP internet access, and most providers would have you pay per 1MB of data. The j2me phones came before the QWERTY phones, but maybe they weren't as popular where you lived, since the idea that a laptop would be more accessible to someone than a j2me phone sounds pretty wild to me. Probably because wide adoption of cellphones came a bit late, and people were buying j2me capable phones as their first phones, my first phone lasted me more than 6 years. Also I think that 5CAD/month is a factor, since subscription based service was not common at all here back then, and that meant everyone had internet on a phone by default, you would get charged for it after you'll use it, not before. To put it into perspective, ICQ was text-only, with added emojis if your client supported them. This meant that with a very heavy chatting you'll get to 1, maybe 1.5MB per day, and that was super-affordable. Basically you could chat for a week non-stop for a price of 1-2 SMS messages. Skype, on the other hand, came much later, and it was much, much more internet-hungry. And this is what pushed even regular people to seek help setting up Jimm on their phones, some cellphone stores had it as a paid service.
          Also I have to mention that j2me phones were not smartphones, and they mostly were single-task devices, meaning that you had to keep Jimm open. Some high-end phones could allow j2me apps to run in the background, usually one at a time, and unlike smartphones they wouldn't randomly kill it. Jimm evolved pretty heavily, in order to help people who had to log out of it every time they wanted to make a call or listen to music Jimm got in-app phone capabilities, allowing you to make calls from Jimm itself. MSN never took off here for whatever reason, most likely because it wasn't pre-installed.

          1 vote
          1. [2]
            Comment deleted by author
            Link Parent
            1. NeoTheFox
              Link Parent
              Sounds like you are 5-6 years younger than me then, but memories-wise I had a similar experience to you - just replace all the US locations with Eastern Europe ones and outlet with a place where...

              Sounds like you are 5-6 years younger than me then, but memories-wise I had a similar experience to you - just replace all the US locations with Eastern Europe ones and outlet with a place where bloody GPRS would let you log into Jimm. I still am in touch with some of the people from my original contact list, some on Steam, some on Telegram, some via Jabber. It's really interesting how something that seems like minor protocol/pricing differences may shape the whole way of communication for people.

              1 vote
      2. guts
        Link Parent
        No IM beats ICQ incoming message sound, loved the sound/art/design of that app.

        No IM beats ICQ incoming message sound, loved the sound/art/design of that app.

        2 votes
    2. [2]
      masochist
      Link Parent
      Adium, a Pidgin-based client for macOS, is quite appealing. It looks like a native macOS app, it feels like a native macOS app, it adopts macOS-specific technologies to create a delightful...

      Adium, a Pidgin-based client for macOS, is quite appealing. It looks like a native macOS app, it feels like a native macOS app, it adopts macOS-specific technologies to create a delightful experience. It's very specific to the Mac and there's no version for any other platform, despite repeated requests from the poor sods on Windows.

      On Unix/X Window (where Pidgin is native), Pidgin is similarly appealing compared to the other apps (... which frequently don't have Unix-native clients at all or have clients that feel terrible to use).

      1 vote
      1. NeoTheFox
        Link Parent
        Not to mention that people who used Nokia phones before Microsoft took over were using libpurpble-based messenger, that used to be the only one IM available to them (with exception of Skype on...

        Not to mention that people who used Nokia phones before Microsoft took over were using libpurpble-based messenger, that used to be the only one IM available to them (with exception of Skype on later models), and thanks to this you can use these phones with modern IMs supported by libpurple to this day.

        2 votes
  3. [7]
    vord
    Link
    IMO, email is still the superior electronic communication medium, simply because it has a standardized protocol all clients can implement. IRC fits this bill nicely as well. Matrix.org (with...

    IMO, email is still the superior electronic communication medium, simply because it has a standardized protocol all clients can implement. IRC fits this bill nicely as well. Matrix.org (with Riot.IM as the definitive client atm) is a good step in this direction, but it's still immature and quashing bugs. I fear that while the app market of "build a userbase then monetize that base" is perpetuated, we'll never arrive at a modern, standardized protocol the way SMS, Email, IRC was in the past.

    6 votes
    1. [4]
      NeoTheFox
      Link Parent
      Well modern IMs like Telegram or Viber have a lot of features that are quite server-heavy. Compared to Email or IRC one Telegram message could waste as much bandwidth as a whole IRC chatroom would...

      Well modern IMs like Telegram or Viber have a lot of features that are quite server-heavy. Compared to Email or IRC one Telegram message could waste as much bandwidth as a whole IRC chatroom would in a day - take video message for example. To support such infrastructure you have to spend a lot of money, and we have to figure out where that money would come if we'll go into federated mode for example. Jabber servers were numerous and free because they never took any noticeable resources and could be run from somebody's basement, but if tomorrow Telegram opens the server side you wouldn't be able to host even 10 people comfortably on a personal server. IMO sooner or later when all these chats would grow to a point where they have nowhere to grow they would be force to cooperate somehow. In a federated network we would much more likely have to deal with ads or paid membership. Mastodon is a good example - even now some servers are on a pay-per-registration basis, and it would only get further from there. Email is good, but nothing about it is instant. DeltaChat is a good idea, but I'm yet to see it in action sadly.

      2 votes
      1. [3]
        vord
        Link Parent
        The feature sets of Email/IRC are not why they are superior. It is because they are using a standardized protocol. Say what you will about email's or IRC's lack of features, but the real point is...

        The feature sets of Email/IRC are not why they are superior. It is because they are using a standardized protocol. Say what you will about email's or IRC's lack of features, but the real point is that anybody can create a new email or IRC client. That is not true of Telegram or Viber.

        The only reason there are 8000+ chat protocols is because everybody wants their own walled garden of users to be data-mined.

        8 votes
        1. papasquat
          Link Parent
          There are better standardized protocols. Email shouldn't really be part of the conversation, because we're talking about IM apps. IRC doesn't save state between clients, there's no reliable...

          There are better standardized protocols. Email shouldn't really be part of the conversation, because we're talking about IM apps. IRC doesn't save state between clients, there's no reliable delivery mechanism, it's plagued by issues with netsplits, there's no good in protocol way to deal with permissions and authentication, among dozens of other issues.

          I like IRC as much as the next person, but it's a dated protocol with a lot of huge issues that make it non-competitive in 2019. Matrix looks promising as a replacement, but it's still pretty buggy from what I've seen.

          6 votes
        2. NeoTheFox
          Link Parent
          Not for Viber, but Telegram is open-source and mtproto documentation is available. It's a part of the reason why I consider Telegram a good compromise, even with its server side closed. But I...

          the real point is that anybody can create a new email or IRC client. That is not true of Telegram or Viber.

          Not for Viber, but Telegram is open-source and mtproto documentation is available. It's a part of the reason why I consider Telegram a good compromise, even with its server side closed. But I agree, federation is a good feature, however here we have a huge gap between the interests of common people and more tech-savy people. The goal of an IM protocol is to keep people connected, and if it fails to attract a critical mass of people it would never take off. Sadly we don't live in a world where people read the EULAs and care about data collection, monetization practices, invasive ads, etc, as long as the service is free. This puts any IM that has transparency, openness and security on a forefront at a disadvantage before IMs that appeal to a more general audience that prefer photo filters, video calls, animated emojiis and so on. At this point we can't even define clearly what is a must have feature for an IM and what isn't. Chinese users of WeChat enjoy instant money transfers and shops via the IM, is it necessary for a protocol to support this? And if not what would happen when WhatsApp introduces its own payment system? And when Telegram's TON comes around?
          Same thing with video calls and audio messages. Are they have to exist in the protocol? Who gets to store them? And so on and so on. And while on one hand it's easy to install an extra app people very much prefer to keep everything within one single app, and it's understandable. I really think we would be forced to go through the multi-client phase again before it gets better.

    2. Akir
      Link Parent
      Email is not a real standard though. It's a de facto meta-standard defined across several disparate documents by different organizations describing extensions which may be proprietary or rare...

      Email is not a real standard though. It's a de facto meta-standard defined across several disparate documents by different organizations describing extensions which may be proprietary or rare enough to not matter anymore.

    3. weystrom
      Link Parent
      What's the last time you've sent a personal email though? My personal email is just a sink for website registrations at this point. I'd love to bring it back, but people are so used to instant...

      What's the last time you've sent a personal email though?
      My personal email is just a sink for website registrations at this point.

      I'd love to bring it back, but people are so used to instant messaging now, i don't think it's viable.

  4. [3]
    slambast
    Link
    I'm actually working on a basic messaging app solely for my SO and I to use to talk to each other. There are a ton of messaging apps, but it seems like all of them are missing something vital:...

    I'm actually working on a basic messaging app solely for my SO and I to use to talk to each other. There are a ton of messaging apps, but it seems like all of them are missing something vital: WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, and it looks like FB is planning to exert more control over it; Telegram is a bit suspicious IMO (I can't figure out their business model, or if they even have one); Signal is great but has some problems with messages getting delivered; Riot/Matrix is also great but I experienced some usability issues. I'm hoping that creating my own (for use by two people) will be a fun side project and allow my SO and I to get exactly what we want - an android app, reliable/timely delivery, and a much lower chance of eavesdropping. (Plus, we like using italics.)

    Personally, I don't think federation will take off unless a federated service is the best thing around - if a federated messaging service got close to becoming a market leader, then I think federated messaging would take off like a rocket. But I also don't think people really care (or know enough to care) to adopt federated messaging en masse for federation's sake alone.

    4 votes
    1. [2]
      Kraetos
      Link Parent
      You're right, it has no business model. The founder just thinks an important service for the world to have. He's a billionaire and he funds it out-of-pocket. Still, I wouldn't use it for anything...

      Telegram is a bit suspicious IMO (I can't figure out their business model, or if they even have one)

      You're right, it has no business model. The founder just thinks an important service for the world to have. He's a billionaire and he funds it out-of-pocket.

      Still, I wouldn't use it for anything super sensitive—that's what Signal is for.

      3 votes
  5. [2]
    Arshan
    Link
    I still haven't found a messaging platform / protocol that I can wholeheartedly support. The closest is Matrix, but it still doesn't have complete E2E as well as being fairly buggy. I wasn't...

    I still haven't found a messaging platform / protocol that I can wholeheartedly support. The closest is Matrix, but it still doesn't have complete E2E as well as being fairly buggy. I wasn't really around for the 200X IM revolution, so I can't talk about similarities. I will say that Whatsapp, Imessage and FB Messenger have siloed users in incompatible systems, and I believe that a unifying platform would be beneficial for all.

    3 votes
    1. NeoTheFox
      Link Parent
      I prefer Telegram, because while it's not perfect and has a closed-source server side it's the best IM feature-wise, and the client is open. It's also easy for me to put some trust into Durov, and...

      I prefer Telegram, because while it's not perfect and has a closed-source server side it's the best IM feature-wise, and the client is open. It's also easy for me to put some trust into Durov, and I like the whole user-oriented feel of it. All these things are making people register and use Telegram themselves, without me, "the geek guy" having to constantly pedal my "geeky" apps to people that nobody uses. In an ideal world Matrix would be more widespread, but since without anyone to talk to IMs are pointless it's the best compromise I have.

      2 votes
  6. [5]
    Algernon_Asimov
    Link
    Not here in Australia. Here in Australia, SMS is still the most common way to send text messages. Person-to-person and business-to-customer SMSs are extremely common. Between friends, SMSs is the...

    This happened once already, at the dawn of 200X IM revolution that deprecated SMS for good

    Not here in Australia. Here in Australia, SMS is still the most common way to send text messages. Person-to-person and business-to-customer SMSs are extremely common.

    Between friends, SMSs is the most common method of textual communication. All my friends use it and, based on anecdotal evidence I've heard of, I don't know of anyone who doesn't use it (even my technophobic 70-year-old mother can send SMSs!). Some people might use internet messaging for some conversations, but everyone uses SMSs because everyone has access to SMS.

    Every time I sign up as a customer with a corporation (bank, utility, retailer, etc), they ask for my mobile number - and then use it to send me official correspondence and/or spam. Some business communications have almost become reliant on being able to send SMSs to customers. Some companies use it more than email!

    3 votes
    1. [4]
      spctrvl
      Link Parent
      Likewise in the US. Basically the reason for that disparity is that carriers in some regions, like Latin America and parts of Europe, charged out the nose for SMS, so users quickly shifted to...

      Likewise in the US. Basically the reason for that disparity is that carriers in some regions, like Latin America and parts of Europe, charged out the nose for SMS, so users quickly shifted to internet based messaging platforms as soon as they became available for phones. That's why WhatsApp is huge globally, but little known in some counties, such as the US.

      3 votes
      1. [3]
        Algernon_Asimov
        Link Parent
        Yeah. Here in Australia, most telcos include unlimited SMSs as a basic clause in their phone contracts these days. Before internet data became the primary point of competition, it was SMSs: telcos...

        Yeah. Here in Australia, most telcos include unlimited SMSs as a basic clause in their phone contracts these days. Before internet data became the primary point of competition, it was SMSs: telcos would compete on how many SMSs they included in their plans. The cost of texting was never high to start with, but it just kept dropping and is now effectively free.

        2 votes
        1. [2]
          NeoTheFox
          Link Parent
          Yup, only after wide WhatsApp, Telegram and Viber adoption telcos here managed to get unlimited SMS messages to plans, before that it was charged per-SMS, and even now when I have an option to get...

          Yup, only after wide WhatsApp, Telegram and Viber adoption telcos here managed to get unlimited SMS messages to plans, before that it was charged per-SMS, and even now when I have an option to get them there is no reason for me to do so, since it involves paying extra, and even from my included 300 minutes I'm barely using 10 per month, since I often call people via Telegram instead. Not only it is more secure, you also get to call people from your PC or laptop.

          1 vote
          1. spctrvl
            Link Parent
            I'm sure it'll only last until Google notices that someone is still using Google voice, but it allows you to do that with SMS and traditional telephony, and as someone who lives in a country where...

            Not only it is more secure, you also get to call people from your PC or laptop.

            I'm sure it'll only last until Google notices that someone is still using Google voice, but it allows you to do that with SMS and traditional telephony, and as someone who lives in a country where those technologies still reign supreme, that's always been one of my favorite features. Definitely something I'll be sad to lose when google inevitably pulls the plug.

            1 vote